Posts tagged as Unbelievable
BHL Types Again! French Man Believes Rape is a Crime!
You've pretty much perp-walked yourself down a dark alley of the theoretical if you have to include the disclaimer "I, of course, consider rape and attempted rape as crimes," Bernard Henri-Levy. Oh do you? That's great. READ MORE
David Paterson First Out of Gate to Claim Muslims Have a Slashing Coming
I laughed! But the last laugh is on me. This IM conversation took place yesterday afternoon. In it, we wondered: which politician would be the first to suggest that the crazy (alleged!) stabbing of a New York City cab driver because he is a Muslim would be proof that the "Ground Zero Terror Mosque" should be moved? As a gambling man, I always like the long shot. But I went too long. My fine coworker, Mr. Alex Balk, always has his eye on the prize, and so he correctly guessed that the governor of New York State would be the first to try to explain that, yes, of course Muslims will be stabbed if we build a cultural center devoted to understanding and tolerance in lower Manhattan. I regret my error, but I regret David Paterson a whole lot more.
The Case Against Gay Marriage, by Ross Douthat, Space Alien
The reason I always make fun of low-level Times semi-conservo-wonk Ross Douthat being unwilling to publicly explain his opposition to gay marriage is that he said it was too personal, essentially. (I know: quite unlike being singled out by society your entire life for being gay-though I guess some people take that personally too? Anyway, that's why they call it privilege, Ross! Privilege literally means you don't have to deal with such things.) So good news! He has laid it out, and I really encourage everyone to sit down and read it slowly. I found it an amazing experience. I won't spoil the actually stunning conclusion-I was actually stunned! I had to sit down for a few minutes to gather myself!-but, in short, he apparently believes that gay marriage is some seven-week-old fetus that needs to be thrown out along with the bathwater of the society that straight people have so thoroughly fouled. After that, you can read the incredibly well-reasoned comments that were allowed on the Times site before they were shut down (hmm!) and then Glenn Greenwald picking apart a few points nicely-but in an incredible way, Douthat is literally unaddressable. Douthat really does want people to be happy, I think. But this all reads like he's never met a person before, so how would he know?
Chris Anderson Is Worse Than Wal-Mart
Wired editor Chris Anderson raised issue with and made some explanations regarding yesterday's Malcolm Gladwell review of his book, Free, which has chunks of other people's work in it. Unfortunately, he ends his concluding paragraph with a question. To which he hedges the answer. And then he ends in disaster-proposing a system of labor divorced almost entirely from profit, a bizarre model so hyper-capitalist that it resembles nothing so much as a digital-age medieval society. He would even create a new class of corporate vassalage! Is this what he possibly really thinks? He says yes! READ MORE
